9781422286845

Vital and Creative: The Art and Architecture of Mexico

central Mexico around A . D . 150, stand near present-day Mexico City. It was a carefully planned city, set up on a grid pattern and divided into four parts. There were multi-family apartment complexes, elaborate palaces, temples, courtyards, and ball courts. This very ancient civilization was probably first established a hundred years after the birth of Christ, and it collapsed around A . D . 750. The most awesome structures of Teotihuacán are the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. These pyramids are centered on the Avenue of the Dead, a great boulevard nearly a mile long and very wide. The pyramids were made of earth, adobe bricks, and rubble, then faced with stone, covered with plaster, and painted. The ruins of Teotihuacán influenced the architecture of the Aztecs, the last great civilization of the pre-Hispanic period. The Aztecs included several cultures who spoke the same language and lived in central Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest . The strongest group was the Mexica Aztecs, who build the great city of Tenochtitlán. The builders of Tenochtitlán mixed the architecture of previous cultures. They borrowed ideas, such as the careful urban planning of Teotihuacán. Buildings for grain and arsenals of weapons were placed strategically throughout the city. Botanical gardens grew among the buildings, and beautiful tall palaces, the homes of nobles, stood in the center of the city. Like the Olmecs and the Mayans, the Aztecs built pyramids. At the top were temples to their gods, Tlaloc (the rain god) and Huitzilopochtli (the war god). When the Spanish came to Mexico in the 16th century, they were deeply impressed by the city of Tenochtitlán. The

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The enormous Pyramid of the Sun was 700 feet square and 217 feet high.

streets were wide and straight, the buildings tall and beautiful, and